Smart Glider and Smart Cruiser weapon systems to be produced in UAE shown at MBDA stand at Dubai Airshow 2023. (Agnes Helou / Breaking Defense)
DUBAI AIRSHOW — The United Arab Emirates and partner MBDA have set a target production date of 2030 for a new set of co-developed smart weapons, the first major collaboration between the Gulf nation and the European defense giant since the opening of a new, joint missile engineering center in Abu Dhabi just weeks ago.
“Today, we are starting with one project, which is the smart weapons, and it is very critical [to] structuring our strategy here in the UAE because it’s a weapon that will respond to the forces’ needs in the UAE and also to the export market,” MBDA Middle East vice president, Patrice Hajjar told Breaking Defense, noting that France, in particular, could be a future customer for the arms.
Hajjar said the missile engineering center, first announced at a defense expo in Abu Dhabi in February and established between MBDA and the UAE’s Tawazun Council, is in pre-production of the Smart Cruiser and Smart Glider missiles — both derived from MBDA systems but with UAE-owned intellectual property. The smart weapon systems will be equipped with MBDA’s Orchestrike, a collaborative combat system designed to allow communication between multiple missiles and unmanned aircraft so they can act as a swarm.
“The Smart Glider and Cruiser are air-to-ground missiles and are dedicated for future combat with its swarming capabilities with AI-embedded capabilities for smart trajectory to deceive the air defense system and cloud combat to communicate with the control center and yet at the same time communicate with other effectors,” Hajjar said.
MBDA envisions the munition operating with the Rafale fighter jet, but also with other aircraft because it is launched from a dedicated smart launcher dubbed as Hexalauncher.
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Along with models of the missiles themselves, two models of the Hexalauncher were displayed at the MBDA stand at Dubai Airshow. The first was an external launcher configuration that can hold six missiles. The Rafale can hold three launchers for 18 missiles total.
The other configuration is an internal launcher that the firm hopes to be able to integrate into whatever design Europe’s 6th generation fighter takes.
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MBDA Envisions New UAE Subsidiary
Speaking with Breaking Defense, Hajjar noted that MBDA engineers have been working closely with Emirati engineers from Tawazun Council at the missile engineering center, but that’s not the end of MBDA’s growing interest in the region.
He said the company intends to establish its own subsidiary in the UAE, though he did not say when the European firm might make such a move.
“We intend to establish a subsidiary of MBDA, in order to conduct industrial activities and develop other projects,” he said.
“The UAE of course is investing massively in its defense industry that is growing,” Hajjar said and pointed out that the firm is in talks with the Emirati conglomerate EDGE Group for potential future collaboration on the smart weapon project.
Leonardo Jacopo Maria Mazzucco, an analyst at Gulf State Analytics, agreed the UAE is pushing hard to bring defense production home.
“Once over-dependent on weapon systems provided by Western suppliers, the UAE has embarked on a path aimed at diversifying the country’s defense procurement beyond traditional trade partners and bolstering the local military-industrial complex,” Mazzucco told Breaking Defense.
Mazzuco said that starting in the early 2000s, and “at an accelerating pace over the past decade, the UAE has made quantum leaps forward in expanding the base of weapon providers and developing a domestic defense-industrial base capable of satisfying national needs and winning a larger slice of the global arms market.
“The opening of Tawazun-MBDA Missile Engineering Center in Abu Dhabi in June 2023 and the recent announcement that the Center will start design, develop and manufacture ‘smart missile’ capabilities are paradigmatic examples of the Emirati quest for defense production empowerment,” he said. “The short timeframe between the Center’s inauguration and the starting of operations on niche missile capabilities speak volumes about the UAE’s firm resolve in rapidly operationalizing strategic partnerships with foreign defense companies and making them deliver tangible and revenue-generating outcomes.”